


Loneliness shared is still loneliness

by DryDreams



Category: Overwatch (Video Game), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Kinda fucked up tbh but like, Lonely!zen, M/M, Manipulation, Poetic, and sex for the purpose of manipulation, implication of unrequited feelings, lonely zen wants Genji to join him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DryDreams/pseuds/DryDreams
Summary: Soon enough Genji will accept his home, just as his master has. And he will be content.
Relationships: Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta
Kudos: 15





	Loneliness shared is still loneliness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spicedrobot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedrobot/gifts).



> A tiny thing I belatedly wrote for a friend for a Halloween exchange 🥰🥰 if you’re a Lonely stan and you like robots you might like this even if u don’t know overwatch very well?? Idk idk

Zenyatta used to love the way the sky made him feel. It was breathtaking, to be a part of something so vast and inexplicable. He treasured the nights when the stars were clearest, and he loved when it rained, the chill damp of it making his sensors spark with sensation that brought him a strange thrill. A spike of fear maybe, of helplessness. 

He had no knowledge back then of how strange and magnificent fear could be, the forms it could take… the way it could be worshiped and put to good use. He did not learn until he realized that he was always meant to belong to them— to _it._ Not to the sky, no… to The One Alone. 

These days, looking at the sky is oppressively lonely. 

It’s fine. So is he. 

And he should be. He is alone, after all.   
The monastery is as empty as a tomb. Even he often feels as though he is not there, not really. Just a ghost as he floats through the rooms.

He accepts the loneliness, drapes himself in it like a shroud. Slipping into its arms is easy. He’d barely even have noticed handing himself over to its waiting embrace were it not for the times he looked at the sky. Those times still feel sacred, in a new way. A numb way. They are religious experiences. Communions. He looks at the stars and they tell him he is nothing. So small he cannot be seen, so insignificant that he does not need to matter. 

When Mondatta was taken from them— that’s when he had truly started to drift away. It had always been inside him, the penchant to self isolate, to spend so much time looking inside himself that others gave up on trying to get close. Letting this take him over was no hardship at all; to use grief as an excuse to dismiss his pupils, his visitors, his brothers… to ignore everything and everyone around him. 

Until one day, he was the only one left, and he hadn’t even noticed them go. Everyone else had all gone; murdered or fled or simply disappeared. Maybe he was to blame for those last few stragglers… but he doesn’t remember, nor can he care.

Feeding his new God is no hardship. He barely has to do any work in luring those seeking peace and enlightenment to his mountain top. Sometimes he greets them, sometimes he does not. Then all he has to do is leave them to their thoughts... until they realize there is no one anymore. And there never will be again. Even if they go down from the mountain no one will help them if they fall, kiss them if they are yearning, hear them if they scream. 

That is true enlightenment, Zenyatta knows now. How can one be truly at peace until they realize that they will always inevitably end up alone? They’ll be better off this way. He certainly is. 

He is content. He goes about his life this way for a long time, as a ghost.

Then one day the boy arrives. 

If you could call him that— he’s almost as much metal as he is man. There is something interesting about him, something special. Zenyatta draws closer to watch as he wanders inside, looking silently around rather than calling to see if anyone is here as most people do. He just looks. 

It is clear that the Lonely does follow him, nipping at his heels like a sheep dog… there is a heaviness to him, a melancholy. But there is something different in his eyes, a spark rather than the glazed fog of someone who has accepted they have been Forsaken. There is a glint of rage. Of Slaughter. 

This one will be a tug of war, Zenyatta thinks. There is no peace within him yet, no clear string to pull him into the quiet and keep him there. He’ll fight too hard.

Zenyatta thinks it has been a while since he had a good challenge. He introduces himself.

The transition back into life with another is not so hard. Genji— that is his name— keeps to himself, and is not one to barge in or interrupt. In fact, he’s remarkably polite, in a way that hints at a lovely intrinsic fear, something put there at a very young age. Speaks only when spoken too, for a long while. It’s almost pleasant.

It becomes even more pleasant when Zenyatta starts finding ways to drag him closer. There are really so many things to prod at in humans, especially broken ones like this. Dangle affection in front of them, just enough that they feel hope of a connection… then remind them that you are incapable of such a thing. He is just an artificial mind, after all. Love cannot be real for him, of course. 

Still, he can touch and he can praise, he can listen to secrets spilled and tilt his head like he has pity, _empathy._ He can drag Genji down into his bed and play him like an instrument, coax moans from his throat and perfect chemicals of pleasure and joy to spill into his fickle brain. 

And then he can sit up, and pretend to not notice the way Genji’s chest heaves and his eyes flicker with disappointment. “Was that satisfactory?” He can ask, in that polite tone that Genji’s mind will connect with casual transactions and personality devoid assistants.

—and Genji will continue to take it, to yearn for as much as he can get, because certainly it’s better than being taken, being hurt… right? And he is learning to find peace, surely that can only be an improvement? 

—and Zenyatta will leave, every time, disappearing into the fog that is always just out of sight, leaving behind a void so tangible that one could not help but feel it, like something has been tugged from inside them. 

Sometimes, Genji sobs with it. Zenyatta does not stay to listen. Soon enough there will be no more tears. No more of anything like that sharp pain and anger he clings to less and less every day. 

Soon enough Genji will accept his home, just as his master has. And he will be content.


End file.
